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Subscribe to RSSA Florida woman is in jail on a $5 million bond after she plotted to have her young children murder her in-laws, authorities said.
Leticia Silva, 31, of Lakeland, Fla., is accused of mailing her daughters, ages 7 and 9, a knife from jail last December. Silva allegedly instructed the kids to use the blade to murder their paternal grandparents in Greenville, N.C., said Christy Wallace of the Pitt County Sheriff's office.
Silva lost custody of her children after she was arrested in Florida for possession of methamphetamines and sent to prison, NBC affiliate WFLA in Tampa Bay reported. Her young daughters have lived with her in-laws for seven years, Wallace said.
The murder plot went awry after the childrens' grandmother found the knife under one of the girl's pillows in early February, according to Wallace. That's when the grandmother brought both girls to the sheriff's office, where they informed investigators that their mother told them to use the blade to kill their grandparents.
An investigation is underway and police won't speculate on Silva's motives.
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Silva's friend, Mary Snell, told WFLA that Silva was determined to regain custody of her daughters.
"Her one goal in life was to get them back," Snell told WFLA.
Silva turned herself into the Pitt County Detention Center on Monday, according to sheriff's office press release. She is charged with four counts of first-degree solicitation to commit murder and is being held under a $5 million secured bond.
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Wow. Talk about bad parenting. I sometimes think I had it rough and by most standards, I undoubtedly did but holy crap. What kind of head screw is this? Poor kids.
How do you mail knives from jail?
Mailing a weapon from jail to a 7 year old? Wow.
My thoughts exactly, how did the knife get past?
Wow, that's some clear thinking. So you don't have custody because you used meth. Okay, so you go to prison for it and you lose your kids. So the thought process might go to how I can cleaned up to get my kids back. Nope, let me send knives to my children with instructions to kill their grandparents. It will never, ever be found out because kids get knives in the mail every day and no child ever tells anything to anyone about things like that. And of course no one will ever be able to trace that knife and the kids won't tell where they got it even if they do manage to hurt someone. Gee, they'll let me right out of here and give me back the kids right away!!!! Let me send that package right now and I'll have them back by next month.
So with that clear line of reasoning I can't imagine why she lost custody or got mixed up with drugs, can you? Geez...amazing woman and I can't imagine why no one seems to appreciate her resourcefulness. And yes, why didn't that outgoing mail get stopped? I feel for the poor kids...what do you do with that? It's from your mom, but with those instructions and something dangerous. That lady seems to have used a whole lot of meth to think that way.
"Get them back." "All I want is my children!" I hear or read of this from noncustodial parents all of the time, especially the highly dysfunctional and/or criminal ones. It's as if they think of the children as possessions. It makes me sick!
[Delete accidental duplicate]
Ummm, I'll give you "one" guess...
A Knife? around here she would have had to send the "little darlings" a spork, Yet they hid it under their pillow and was evidently going to use it. seems the apples didn't fall far here, After all people think for a moment... didn't YOU know better at that age?
(GM CD)
she needs to stay in prison alot alonger now
IA.ScooterTramp--that you think you know exactly what the children were thinking and were going to do says more about your character than theirs. Trashy thoughts come from trashy people.
Umm. Am I the only that caught on that the kids are 7 and 9 and have lived with the grandparents for 7 years? Obviously she's got problems and shouldn't be let out of jail. She's never been a parent to them, and she should never have the opportunity to.
How come an inmate search doesn't come up with anything on the Department of Corrections website? Thought she was jailed on $5mil bond?
denouement
so they received it and hid it under their pillow, exactly why? get a grip. or try thinking once, maybe it will grow on you, but i doubt it. those who hurl insults generally are immune to the thought process to begin with.
So many issues on multiple fronts...
I blame the post office clowns too...how the heck do you miss a knife in an envelope?
Looks like dumbasses on all sides of the isle...mom, post office, jail mailroom, the judge for imposing a $ 5 million bond on a meth addict, the State of Florida for having too many dumbasses...
Man...
If she could mail a knife from jail, I imagine that she didn't have enough postage to mail a gun!
Wow, how does this happen?
Maybe you should try not doing meth . . . and orchestrating murders.
Not that absurd, although anything going in and out of a jail system should be monitored with extra scrutiny. A quick visit to any TOR website offering illicit goods for bitcoins tells you that pretty much anything can be mailed these days as long as it isn't explosive. I'm talkin drugs, firearms, PEOPLE... As long as the bomb detector doesn't catch it , it makes it through the system. I say that from experience, as I have witnessed everything from ounces to pounds of weed or hash, prescriptions, firearms, and yes, even the odd person, shipped successfully within U.S. borders. You'd be surprised what will make it through.
And thats all @!$%# w.o permits, a.k.a Illegal as all hell. Happens all day , every day.
Well she just assured that she's never getting her kids back now.
Why hold her for a bond? From behind bars, she is a lethal threat to children and relatives despite incarceration. This is a clear case for the death penalty. Exterminate her now.
Why don't they screen communications to and from inmates? I feel they gave up their rights to privacy when they committed a crime. The prison would be partly liable had her children harmed their grandparents. I understand they make weapons in prison but they should do more searches of cells and incoming/outgoing mail.
What she was just showing her little one the type of fine cutlery they use in prison dinning.
She sent her 7 and 9 year old daughters a knife...hmmm, is there something off here?
No, you can't bring in weapons, nothing said you can't send out your weapons.
The kids are aged 7 and 9 and have lived with their grandparents for the last seven years. The grandparents are probably the best thing that's happened to those children considering the mom is obviously a whack job and the dad is nowhere in the picture. Kudos for the grandparents to step in the way they did to raise these children. If convicted the mother should get extra time slapped to her sentence just for putting such an evil demand on those children.
Mom probably stayed with the grandparents too, even though they are the children's paternal grandparents. So there is a father who acknowledged paternity somewhere, or he may have died at some point.
Why was the knife under her pillow? Why didn't the kid show the package to the grandparents?
It was from her mother. Just because she is a crappy mother and in prison doesn't mean her kids can't love her, and the child may have felt conflicted...something from mom but what do I do?
Maybe the poor thing wanted to keep the one thing that she has of her mother. They are only children.
And how is it that kids this young are opening their mail privately? If my kids get a package, we open it together...and I hope that if my grandkids got a packaged from their crazy meth-head mother who was in prison that I would open it with them!
Poor kids! Their mother is in jail and still not done ruining their lives. I hope they weren't really considering murdering their grandparents. (And poor grandparents--boy do they have a burden!)
Let's see she got a knife in prison and mailed it to her kids???????? What? LOL how dysfunctional is this family? Were the kids really going to murder their grandmother?????? LMAO! Sick but it is Florida after all, first thought would have been Texas but anywhere in the south sounds about right.
Perhaps the better question is, "How disfunctional is the jail staff?"
You clearly aren't reading news from Michigan, or Connecticut, or California, or North Dakota, or...
Do you have the guts to tell what state you're are from? I bet not, because you know within two minutes I could find and post a dozen stories of sick people from your state--perhaps even your town--or even your house!
Don't even waste your breath "denouement"...surely old what's it's name up there that posted that bit of worldly enlightenment... is a basement dweller, who thinks reality T.V. is real and that movies are historical documenteries. There is absolutely no help for them and people like them...they are so overwhelmingly ignorant and out of touch that there is no hope! And all they are doing now is wasting precious space and sucking up air that people with a grain of sense should be breathing!
Wondering if this was just a story the kids made up?
Seriously - why does everyone believe children that age over everything else. Kids were caught red handed - and they obviously did not come forward when they received the package.
Chilling to think that your own Grand kids could stab you while you sleep.
No, I don't think they made that up...possible, but doubtful. I am sure the kids were questioned by someone who could sort that out. Red handed? It doesn't say they used the knife for anything or did anything wrong. If it were from your mother and all you had from her and here she is saying that, they might have been confused or thought they would get in trouble.
So you think a package came for two small children and no one noticed?
How did she have a knife in JAIL???? How did she mail it from JAIL???
My bet is that the news media have the story wrong.
denvouement: I agree. The story ends with her turning herself in.
When was she released? Did she send it from prison, or after being
released? Seems the media is in such a big hurry to get a story out,
that they do not care to wait for the right details and might just guess what happened.
This story is confusing. Inmates can mail packages out of prison that officials don't check? The grandparents allowed the children to receive and open a package from their mother without checking it? Or from any sender, if the mother somehow concealed her name on the package (and why would prison officials allow that)?
But now the mother is out of jail, I assume, because she turned herself into a detention center and had a bail hearing. So she couldn't wait until her release to mail the kids the knife? And why would she imagine girls that young, who don't know her, could understand her written directions, would agree to them, and be capable of carrying them out? And not be concerned, per my earlier point, that the grandparents wouldn't check the package? And that there wouldn't be a police investigation if the girls had managed to harm the grandparents, that would quickly reveal their involvement?
This is almost beyond credibility. If you can believe all of that, assuming this article is correct, you can just as well believe the grandparents staged the whole thing to get their daughter-in-law back in prison, following her apparent release. Or that the girls swiped the knife themselves, and when caught created this story about Mommy mailing it to them. Be interesting to see how this story develops, though often things like this are lost after the initial flurry of publicity.
Rational lines of reasoning don't seem to be mom's strong suit. But it will unfold and I'm sure more details will come out.
If she's already in prison why (and how) would she turn herself into a detention center?
She was able to mail a knife from prison, why not let turn herself in to a dentention center also??? It FLORIDA! Everyday is CRAZY DAY! They have got to get some sun screen down there.
Crazy people are everywhere, but we sure seem to have a double helping of them here in Florida!
Remember when they used to say that all the nuts eventually moved to California? Apparently Florida is the new destination for crazies.
Florida kinda reminds me of that seen in A Bridge To Far. All the crazy people coming out of the woods. You think they know something we don't?
I have a hard time believing she mailed a knife from jail. Then believing that a package arrived for the kids at the grandparents house, the grandparents don't check it and the kids just open a package from their mom, who's in jail, without any supervision.
The story does not add up.
The phrase 'she sent them' can mean more than just 'she mailed a knife from jail'. I can send you flowers and never actually have had possession of them.
But the article does not say "she sent them;" it says "mailing her daughters, ages 7 and 9, a knife from jail" which to most people would mean that she was in jail, had a knife with her, and mailed it from the jail. Could be sloppy reporting/writing, though.
"Her one goal in life was to get them back," Snell told WFLA.
So rather than having a good prison record, showing that she is reforming and off meth, she instead mails them a knife to kill the in-laws.
Florida.
The idea is so crazy, that she thought that she'd get her kids back if the grandparents were murdered instead of going further into the foster care system, that 'm starting to believe she was framed.
where did she get the knife in jail?? did she buy it at the prison store??
What love for these children! The mom is in jail. She wants custody when she gets out. So she sends a knife to her kids to kill the very people who are caring for them while she's in jail. Brilliant. Had they followed her wishes, this would leave them in foster care at best, and in juvenile detention at worst. What an idiot.
Guess she missed out on title "MOTHER OF THE YEAR Award" She wanted custody of these children, please, she would have formed her own posse to rob, ravage and kill anyone who annoyed her. This could have been such a tragic ending. Hope she spends the rest of her life in prison better yet give her to the Alligators. Her girls need to counseling and mental evaluations and a lor of help they will need after this ordeal.
I'm glade to see the prison's in Florida don't allow the inmates to mail guns, they'd have a real problem than!
The term "four counts" implies that other people were either solicited or threatened by Ms. Silva's meth-addled efforts to regain custody of her children. Perhaps her 20MAR court appearance will reveal more information.
I feel great empathy for everyone involved in this story. Drugs ruin so many lives.
Two grandparents, two kids. One count for each kid solicited to murder each grandparent. Four counts.
Teaching these precious little children to MURDER! WOW and WOW, this person is dangerous and completely immoral and NUTS.
I would say they are not so precious if they thought of doing it. The cute little devils.
Wow! 7 and 9 yrs old. I wonder if she will be nominated for Mother of the Year? SMH
Where's the father? Why do his parents have custody of the girls and not him? The possible absence of the father from the home is just as sad as the mother mailing a knife from jail. Unbelievable!
Maybe he's dead? If he is, it's time to reopen his autopsy files.
Ask your 9 and 7 year old children to murder their grandparents?
Which child rearing philosophy would that fall under?
"An investigation is underway and police won't speculate on Silva's motives. "
Does anyone really need a motive to want to kill their in-laws?
UM, I would hope so! Really. There is always a motive (reason).
When they opened up the package you think grandma said if you put this under your pillow and dream real hard you mom's wish will come true.